Pre-departure information

With Commencement done and the money made, I embark on a trip across Russia and Central Asia with 2 other blokes. Our travel blog, which will hopefully be updated is: http://toocheaptofly.blogspot.com/.

I didn't choose the name, just to clarify things.

Since there is a chance that I do not come back at all from this trip, I have decided to post the other video I made, against the will of my friend who is traveling with me (perhaps not the best of decisions). But if I don't come back, nobody else is going to see it, so indulge me, let me leave a little of myself behind.

Confrakes

We need to be careful of those damn Singaporeans

I found it very strange initially that the Americans like to leave their stuff around. A bag full of books here, a wallet there, an ipod on the table, shoes lying around in the locker room, student ID and room keys hanging from a closed door - I mean aren't they afraid that their stuff will get stolen. Whenever I leave stuff around, all the worst possible scenarios will come flooding into my head, things going missing, identity theft, what if someone deletes all my data when I leave my computer logged on in the computar lab, what if someone steals my clothes when I go swimming.

The other day while we were driving around, I noticed a lot of portable BBQ pits outside people's houses and I thought to myself: if this were any Asian country those BBQ pits would probably be gone but in an Asian country no sensible Asian would leave his portable BBQ pit in the middle of no where. (Of course I know I'm making a sweeping statement here, but let me go on for a bit.) And then it dawned on me that the very people who I'm afraid of doing all these evil things to me are Asians or perhaps more specifically Chinese (or even more specifically Singaporeans). We are a very careful race, perhaps a little too frightened. Kiasuism is the more precise word I believe. Damn, so this is how it all fits together.

On a related note, the other day when I was at a reception for graduating international students, this senior from India (I believe) comes up to give a speech (which I paraphrase), "I came here wanting to study economics hoping to get a nice high paying job in NY. But in the end I became a COL (College of Letters) major and I'll be spending the next few months writing." WOW! That's perhaps the most inspiring thing I've heard in a while (other than the now classic: If you get straight As all the time, you're not challenging yourself). Many of us are afraid of deviating from the set conventional path, afraid that we might not be able to get back on once we wander off. That's why we want to do economics, that's why we want to get that nice finance job, earn money and be 'successful'. What a skewed image of success we have! No right minded Asian would want to go away after graduation to some strange, obscure place, find an odd job and live there for a year or two just to see what it's like. We go straight for the 'right' jobs, rushing to find that financial security, rushing to find success. But life is filled with so many other rewarding experiences not found within the cubicle of an office. Yet we choose to confine our choices, we are really quite a frightened bunch of people.

I hope I have the courage to wander off when the choice comes.

Billy Collins

I stumbled upon this, a poem by Billy Collins now set to moving images.
It reminded me of another poem I crossed years ago which is reproduced below,
And made me wish I could write with such glow.
(ugh that was bad)

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

monkeys

Yu [no. 3 sound] (link is working now)

I've been working on a personal video project which is based on the concept of people sharing a single interesting thought they have/had in college in their native language. The whole idea was to capture the thought in a form of physical/artistic memory (I sound like I'm making all this up right?) and also to work on my video editing skills. So far I've done two but one person has strong objections about putting it up on the web (I shall remember to make them sign a waiver in the future before spending numerous hours working on a video without being able to show it to other people), here is the one without any objections.